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Polish game developer 11 Bit Studios challenges prevalent trends in gaming with their ambitious and harrowing title, This War of Mine. Senior writer Pawel Miechowski discussed the inspiration for the game with Rock, Paper, Shotgun, citing an uncredited article entitled “A Year in Hell”, which depicted the struggles of a civilian during the Bosnian war. With such emotive source material, can This War of Mine stand up?
The player takes control of a group of civilians, trying to survive in the fictional war torn city of Pogoren. Each character has a brief bio explaining their lives before the war, and a skill that make them particularly useful for certain aspects of the game. The aim is to survive, which is no small task. At no point does This War of Mine allow the player to feel truly comfortable, with pressing concerns constantly necessitating action to meet the needs of the group.
A clever day/night cycle ties in well with the resource acquisition and management gameplay at the heart of This War of Mine. By day, your group can craft useful tools, upgrade your base and tend to their immediate needs. By night, a solitary member is sent out in search of valuable resources, either by scavenging for them in wreckages, bartering with other civilians or resorting to stealing from those who can’t be bargained with. Both sections of the game are solid, but the tense and unpredictable night segments really elevate the gameplay experience. The ever-present fear of returning to base empty-handed, or worse still, losing a member is intensified during the stealth and action sequences that occur at night.
The most heartbreaking and harrowing moments come from decisions the player must make to keep the group members alive. Will you feed three hungry members of your group, or barter half your food for medicine for the member who is very sick? Could you steal from other struggling civilians, or will you let a group member die? These decisions prove painfully difficult, and each one forces the player to evaluate the worth of each group member in uncomfortable ways. While 11 Bit insist that there are no wrong answers, it is hard to dispel the dark sense of desperation at the lengths needed just to stay alive in the war torn city.
Visually, Pogoren city is painted in dark greys and blues, reflecting the grim atmosphere seen so strongly elsewhere in the game. For a game with such a strong sense of style and theme, it’s odd that the music doesn’t match the dark aesthetic, instead opting for moody, slow guitar riffs that would feel better placed in a cowboy film. Thankfully, the music works well to soften the theme and make the game feel less depressing and more alive.
This War of Mine is an unexpectedly captivating game. 11bit Studios take ambitious risks in gameplay that add to the experience, and the finished product is a real conceptual triumph. Unfortunately, it’s been released into an environment that has really reached saturation point in terms of survival games. Hopefully this won’t stop what is an undeniably clever and haunting game making a real mark in the indie game world.
